In October, 2014 the University of Washington launched a new branding initiative that updated strategy and completely remade foundational messaging and visual collateral for the university. Work to launch this intiative started roughly nine months prior to the launch date, which was ambitious for a project of this scope and scale. At the time work began, I was focusing on directing web communications for my department (University Marketing & Communications). Because the scale of the brand rollout demanded oversight from someone with strong leadership capability, as well as in-depth knowledge of strategic and creative concerns, senior department leadership recruited me to spend roughly half my time managing this project. This work entailed bringing together and working with staff leads to strategize creative brand development, advertising and unit alignment, as well as overseeing follow-through work critical to the success of this effort.
The brand launch was very successful (explained thoroughly in the launch report below), and was impressive considering the large number of stakeholders and the timeframe we were operating within.
Work on the brand launch continues today, focusing chiefly on bringing the university's three campuses, colleges, departments and units into ever-greater brand alignment. To that end, I lead a weekly meeting with leads from each division of our department and the university's Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, focused on continuous improvement of unit brand alignment, stronger brand oversight and deeper brand saturation. This project is a cooperative effort, and it is an ongoing initiative.
Below are some success metrics from the October 2014 Brand Launch:
BE BOUNDLESS BRAND LAUNCH
OCTOBER 2014
TOGETHER WE DID…
WEB
Website traffic on key pages two weeks before launch
· Home page: 278,449 unique page views
· All-campus admissions page: 10,005 page views
· Student Life: 1,837
Website traffic on key pages from launch plus two weeks
· New home page: 358,995 page views (30% increase)
· New all-campus admissions page: 39,548 page views (4x increase)
· Student Life: 10,172 9 (5x increase)
Be Boundless Page
· 27,565 unique page views between Oct. 28 and Nov. 5, with 26,058 of those from Pandora.
- Pandora_Audio Everywhere 15,211 unique page views
- Pandora_Display Everywhere 7,108 unique page views
- Pandora_Video Everywhere 3,855 unique page views
Brand portal
· Posted 48 downloadable graphic elements to the web portal (much more built-out now: http://uw.edu/brand)
· 2,100 unique users, with 23,691 unique page views in 30 days
· 84% of those visitors going beyond the brand homepage and further into the content
· Top assets are (in order) logos, colors, graphic elements, and then fonts
UW Today
· Refreshed with new look
70+ hosted unit sites aligned with brand
SOCIAL MEDIA
· Updated the descriptions and profile photos on all 8 of our social channels to Be Boundless language and the Boundless W.
· The Be Boundless brand video Facebook post reached nearly 150K and has over 6,400 views on the UW YouTube channel
· The Be Boundless PAC12 TV spot viewed over 22,000 times on YouTube, which is the second most watched video on our channel of all time.
· Additional PAC12 TV spot short videos about Husky Women’s Soccer, Mercer Court Rain Water project, a UW student orchestra and the Husky Marching Band gave us a combined 15,000 views on YouTube and reached over 375k on Facebook. More videos are yet to come.
· Combined impact of all Boundless videos to date:
- Total Facebook reach: 556,568
- Total Facebook impressions: 1,035,469
- Total Facebook engaged users (people who clicked on the post): 17,641
- Total Facebook likes/comments/shares: 6,467
- Total Twitter impressions: 128,383
- Total Twitter engagements (retweets, favorites, etc.): 1,663
· Weekly reach was up 20% on Facebook over a two-week period.
· Launched UW Tumblr site with content aimed at prospective students.
MEDIA
· 1 Op-Ed published in The Seattle Times
· 60+ web display, print, radio, streaming radio, billboard and TV Ads. 60! 6-0!
· 1 new: 30 institutional TV spot
OBJECTIVES
Internal Communications
President Young’s brand-launch message to campus:
· Total sent: 73K
· Opens: 23,234 (32%) Note: This open rate is higher than average for all campus messages. Normally that percentage is in the mid-20s.
· Click-throughs: 612 (.84%)
BRAND STORYTELLING
· A novel’s worth of copy for ads, speeches, power point presentations, campus wide emails, reader boards and posters
· Brand story pitches from 16 colleges, schools and partners
· Brand framework infused in the President's Annual Address
UNIT SUPPORT
· Presented to over 500 Advancement and marketing and communications staff at Shop Talk on October 8
· Concluded over 110 individual meetings with units across all three campuses to date
· Enthusiastic response to availability of brand alignment funds. Several unit proposals are being funded for projects.
EVENT SUCCESSES
Convocation
· Over 2,000 brand tenet t-shirts given to attendees. Fan favorite = Passion Never Rests.
UWAA Dawg Dash
· 1,300 wristbands and 1,200 W patches given to attendees
· Be Boundless banner at booth
Annual President’s Address
· 200+ attendees
· Brand packed PowerPoint presentation
W Day
· 5,000 “Be Boundless” t-shirts handed out to students, faculty, staff and a few cute families on all 3 campuses
· 5,000 spirit bracelets with all 9 of the brand tenets
· 5,000 purple and gold Trophy Cupcakes
· 1,700 hot dogs to hungry Huskies and 8 “celebrity chefs” clad in purple aprons
· 1,500 tenet posters given to Brand Pop-up visitors
· 80 Facebook photo contest participants & thousands of photo booth prints
· 5,000 W Day patches given out by bike and by foot
· 2 awesome ASUW emcees and special appearances by 3 UW leaders, President Young, Provost Cauce and Coach Romar!
· 31 merchant discounts from local businesses and 250 W Day buttons delivered to participating merchants
· 30 beautifully designed sandwich boards, 16 banners, 1 newly branded W Day website, numerous web display, print, radio, streaming radio, billboard and TV Ads
· 250 pounds of color powder for the first ever UW Color Fight, 200+ student participants making it rain purple and gold, 500 pairs of purple sunglasses, spirit beads and tattoos and boundless Husky Pride!
· 200 rally towels thrown from the stage to UW trivia winners
· Hundreds of Huskies donning purple and gold face paint
· $322,030 raised in More Purple! #love4UW
· 10,000 Starbucks gift bags fueling Friday morning on campus
· Thousands of Zico and Core Power samples given to thirsty guests
· 40 Husky Marching Band and Cheer performers bringing the Homecoming spirit to Red Square
· 153 purple balloons at U Village and Red Square celebrating the UW’s 153rd birthday
· One unified campus covered in purple, because WE DARED TO DO… AND TOGETHER WE DID!
CAMPUS SIGNAGE
· Be Boundless banner on the Red Square Stacks
· New campus street pole banners
OTHER
· Rebranded all of the Professional and Continuing & Education outdoor media boxes with boundless W logo
